


the paper's crumpled up (it can't be perfect again)

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, F/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:40:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24576202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: “Let’s start with the basics,” Myers says. “Name?”With a sharp jolt, he realizes: he has no idea. He strains his mind, trying to think past the pain, but—nope. He’s got nothing.
Relationships: Jemma Simmons/Grant Ward
Comments: 13
Kudos: 164





	the paper's crumpled up (it can't be perfect again)

**Author's Note:**

> Ta-da! Week twenty-three! And it was a STRUGGLE this week, lemme tell you. But finally, here you go: a fic I started in 2014 and gave up poking at in 2015, now complete and posted! Kind of a relief to finally have it off my hard drive.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy! Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review! <3
> 
> (Also, fair warning that I didn't do nearly as thorough a job editing this as I usually do, because it was TWENTY PAGES in Word and I just couldn't. It's spellchecked and all, but there might be several mistakes. My apologies <3)

There’s someone else in the room. His head hurts.

The two thoughts occur simultaneously, following right on the heels of awareness—and then, a beat later, comes the thought that it’s kind of weird. How could the fact that there’s someone else in the room _possibly_ matter anywhere near as much as the throbbing agony in his head?

It does, though. It matters a lot.

Where he might curl into a ball and whimper like a baby over his pain, some instinct warns him to keep still—to _listen_. Without knowing why, he does. He hears—

—steady beeping—

—slow, even breathing—

—footsteps, but not nearby (outside the room, passing in the halls)—

—distant voices—

—the _ding_ of an elevator—

—the crackle of a loudspeaker.

 _Hospital_ , that same instinct says, and he opens his eyes.

The room is dark, which is lucky. He’s guessing the light directly above him wouldn’t do much for the blinding agony he’s still in. He’s on his back in a hospital bed, attached to (judging by the number of wires) at least three monitors positioned behind his bed. He doesn’t dare look back at them; they’re giving off enough light to illuminate the room and would definitely aggravate his headache.

He starts to shift to his side instead, and—

 _Fuck_. Ow. Okay, not getting up. Something’s wrong with his shoulder, too, not just his head. What the hell happened to him?

He’s tempted to just freeze and wait for some nice nurse to drop by with some nice drugs, but that same nagging instinct from before insists he _can’t_ , not while there’s still someone in the room with him. The someone’s asleep, judging by their breathing pattern, and may well just be a roommate, but—he has to find out for sure. _Needs_ to.

There’s a control for the bed on his left. He reaches for it carefully, judging how far he can move his torso before pain spikes again in his shoulder. (Answer: not far.) Still, as long as he keeps it slow, no sudden movements, it’s a manageable pain.

He gets his hands on the control and raises the back of the bed, bringing himself up to a sitting position—and a quarter of the way there, he can finally see the other person in the room.

It’s a woman, curled up on the couch against the wall and, yeah, fast asleep. There’s some kind of light (streetlight, maybe?) coming through the blinds of the window above her, and while it’s not enough to illuminate her features, he _can_ make out some nasty bruising on her face. There’s bandaging, too, a hint of white gauze peeking out from the arm she has tucked protectively against her chest.

Huh.

He can also see that she’s wearing scrubs, which is…weird. Is she a nurse or a doctor? Either way, he feels like napping in patients’ rooms is probably against hospital regulations.

On the bright side, his nagging instinct is, for some reason, eased by the sight of her. Weird. Very weird.

No time to puzzle over it, though, because the door opens and another woman walks in. She’s dressed in scrubs, too, and studying a tablet as she walks. Three steps into the room, she looks up and pauses when their eyes meet, then gives him a perfunctory smile.

“Good morning, Agent Ward,” she says. _Agent Ward_? “It’s good to see you awake. How are you feeling?”

 _In pain_ is the first thing that comes to mind, but he doesn’t say it. He’s not sure why—here’s the nice nurse (or doctor) he was hoping for, who probably has nice drugs that could ease the endless throbbing in his head and the sharp spike in his shoulder.

But he can’t fight the instinct that warns him not to admit to the pain. He settles on, “Confused.”

“Not surprising,” she says, approaching his bed. She’s got a nametag that says Myers; he files it away. “You received a severe head injury yesterday. I’m sure you’re hurting, but I need to ask you a few standard questions before I can give you anything for it. All right?”

“Okay,” he says. The news about the head injury isn’t exactly a surprise, what with the blinding agony and all, but her blasé attitude is. As though it shouldn’t bother him at all that he woke up in a hospital in horrible pain.

Also, it’s apparently _not_ against hospital regulations for staff to nap in patients’ rooms, because Myers doesn’t seem to find anything odd about the woman sleeping on the couch. In fact, she gives her a fond smile as she passes by.

“Let’s start with the basics,” Myers says. “Name?”

With a sharp jolt, he realizes: he has no idea. He strains his mind, trying to think past the pain, but—nope. He’s got nothing.

“Agent Ward?” he guesses, remembering her greeting.

Myers’ eyes narrow. “Was that a question?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” she says, and taps something on her tablet. “Do you know where you are?”

“A hospital,” he says with more confidence—misplaced, as it turns out.

Oh, Myers’ face stays perfectly blank, but somehow he still knows that was the wrong answer. She’s worried. He can tell. He has no idea _how_ , but he can.

And where the hell is he, if not a hospital?

She asks a few more questions, none of which he can answer. He has no idea how he got here, what he was doing before he got here, what he would be doing if he _weren’t_ here, or where he’s supposed to be. All the questions strike him as weird, somehow. It’s like she’s trying to provoke a specific answer, even though it’s obvious—at least to him, the one in the room who’s _not_ a medical professional (is he?)—that he’s got some kind of amnesia.

Eventually, the questions change tacks, and he _can_ answer some of the newer ones. He doesn’t know the exact date, but he knows it’s 2014. He knows who the president of the United States is, can name all the countries of Europe and Africa (and that’s _definitely_ a weird question), and after some prodding, admits that he knows six ways to escape the room if she becomes violent (an even weirder question).

It’s strange how he just _knows_ some things. In the same way he _knows_ how to subdue Myers and get out of this room, he _knows_ that she’s armed, but not confident with the gun on her hip. He knows that if she attempts to shoot him, she’ll pull to the left, and he might be able to evade the shot.

He _knows_ that if he needs to, he’ll be able to take her down (or out), despite the pain he’s in. It’s weirdly comforting—emphasis on _weird_.

“Well,” Myers sighs eventually, apparently out of questions. “I don’t suppose I need to tell you that you’ve got amnesia.”

“No,” he agrees. “I got that, thanks.”

“Okay,” she says, tapping at her tablet again. “I’ll order another MRI and CT scan, and we’ll get you a physical exam, too—test your reflexes, that kind of thing.”

“ _Another_ MRI and CT scan?” he asks.

“Standard procedure for head injuries,” she says dismissively. “We’ll see if there are any changes from your intake scans, and the doctor will decide what to do from there. Any questions before I go get you a wheelchair?” She points at him sternly. “And no arguments. I don’t care if you feel up to walking, it’s protocol.”

He _was_ about to argue, but for some reason, the word protocol convinces him it would be pointless. Instead, he tips his (still aching) head in the direction of the sleeping woman.

“What about her?” he asks. Something about the thought of leaving her here to wake up alone while he goes off for testing strikes him as…wrong.

“She’s sedated,” Myers says, and checks her watch. “It’ll wear off in another few hours. And in any case, I’m afraid I can’t allow you to speak to her until we’ve determined the severity and cause of your amnesia. You may be compromised.”

There's several things wrong with that, not least the fact that the cause of his amnesia is apparently in question. It seems pretty obvious that the head injury is the source of his memory loss—it’s certainly the cause of a lot of _pain_. He doesn’t know why she would think otherwise, or why the exact cause would affect whether or not he’s allowed to speak to the apparently sedated woman on his couch, though.

He knows, though—in the same way he _knows_ there are armed men waiting just outside to subdue him if he tries to argue with Myers—what compromised means. And that, more than the armed men (six of them, he thinks, judging by the scuffing of shoes on the linoleum; he can take them), keeps him from arguing.

“Okay,” he says. “Fair enough.”

+++

The MRI sucks, the CT scan isn’t much better, and the physical exam feels more like torture. (Turns out he’s got a _lot_ of injuries hiding under his paper-thin gown.) Worst of all, though, is what comes after all the tests: something he can only call an interrogation.

In the end, it’s nearly six hours (and how he knows that when he hasn’t looked at a single clock is another mystery) before they decide he’s not compromised. Good news: the decision comes with scrubs to replace the hospital gown. He might only know his name because he read it from his chart (Grant D. Ward, born January 7, 1983), but at least he’s got pants.

“Just a simple case of amnesia,” the doctor diagnoses. “Brought on by the head injury. Which means, unfortunately, that there’s nothing we can do for you. Your memories will return on their own…if they return at all, of course.”

Comforting. “Right.”

Still, he’s feeling optimistic. He’s got a few things back already, mostly about SHIELD. He’s blaming the logo slapped everywhere; it’d be hard _not_ to have his memory jogged when there’s an eagle in his face every time he turns around.

He knows now that he’s a specialist, which explains a lot of his earlier knowledge about Myers and her discomfort with her gun. He’s trained to do that kind of thing, to size a person up and analyze their weaknesses, and that all that knowledge and instinct is still there is comforting—more hope that he’ll get all his memories back.

“Now that we know you’re not compromised,” the doctor continues, “there’s the matter of what happens next.”

“And what’s that?” Grant asks.

“Not up to me,” the doctor shrugs. “You’ll have to hash that out with your commanding officer. Are you feeling up to speaking with him?”

“Yes,” he lies. Honestly, he’s starting to drag—but he doesn’t want to spend any longer in this uncertain limbo than he absolutely has to.

“Good,” the doctor says, “because he’s already on the line in Comms 4. Follow me.”

Per protocol, Grant’s still stuck in a wheelchair, so the last bit is directed to the orderly who’s been wheeling him around all day. Grant could fight him if he wanted, lever up out of the chair and walk under his own power, but he figures there’s no point. He doesn’t know the way to Comms 4 anyway.

“On the line?” he asks instead.

The doctor checks his tablet. “You’re part of a field team. Aside from your team medic, they’re all in Toronto right now, dealing with some clean-up.”

Somewhere along the line, Grant found out this trauma center is in Denmark. Kind of weird the rest of his team is in _Canada_.

“And the team medic?” he asks, figuring explanations can come from his commanding officer.

“Sedated,” the doctor says, this time without checking his tablet. “Or, she was. I imagine she’s awake by now.”

Ohhh. So the sleeping woman in his room was his team medic. That explains…well, some things. Her injuries, the team separation, and why she got sedated are all still up in the air.

“She okay?” he asks. “She looked pretty beat up.”

“Minor injuries,” the doctor says dismissively. “She’ll be fine.”

Not the same thing as _okay_ , but they reach Comms 4 before Grant can press any further.

Comms 4 turns out to be a small, bare room with a basic communications set-up. One wall is taken up by a video conference screen, there’s a little table holding the secure comms equipment, and that’s it. Not even anywhere to sit.

Good thing Grant brought his chair with him.

As promised, the screen’s already on and a call connected, showing a middle-aged man in front of shelves full of…is that a vintage Captain America comic? Huh.

Once the orderly sets the breaks on Grant’s chair, he starts to stand, driven by some kind of unknown ingrained habit, but the man on the screen waves him back down.

“Don’t get up on my account,” he says. “Stay there, Ward. You look horrible.”

“Thanks, sir,” he says dryly. The _sir_ falls out automatically, driven by another habit, but it feels right—as well it should, when the man’s his commanding officer.

“It’s true,” his commanding officer says, and folds his hands in front of him. “Now, do you know who I am?”

“My commanding officer?”

“Yep,” the man says. “Phil Coulson. Nice to meet you…again.”

“You too, sir,” he says. He’s not sure yet whether it’s _true_ , but there’s no need to be rude right out.

“With that out of the way,” Coulson says, brisk but not unkind, “What do you remember?”

“Not much,” he admits. “I remember SHIELD, but only in a technical sense. No concrete memories of missions or training or anything like that.”

“Nothing about yourself?” Coulson asks. “Hobbies, interests? Childhood trauma?”

He blinks. “Do I have childhood trauma?”

“Kind of a lot,” Coulson says apologetically. “Do you remember your name?”

“No,” he admits. “But I read it off my chart.”

“So you can read,” Coulson says brightly. “That’s good.” He eyes him. “What else can you do?”

“I could cross off every person in this building, if I needed to,” he says honestly. He doesn’t know why he uses those words—cross off—instead of the blunter, more straightforward _kill_ , but something about it feels right.

“Good to know,” Coulson says, kind of dryly, “but we’ll hope it doesn’t come to that.” He leans forward. “I imagine you have questions.”

“Yeah,” Grant says. “A lot of them.”

Coulson nods. “Hit me.”

“The doctor—” Who slipped away a few words into this conversation, disappearing without having once offered his name—“said you’re in Canada?”

“Right,” Coulson says. “I don’t know how much you know about your injury, but basically, our team medic-slash-biochemist was kidnapped six days ago.”

Grant straightens in alarm.

“It’s okay,” Coulson assures him. “You rescued her.”

“She was in my room,” Grant says. “Sedated. I just left her there—”

“Hey, hey, it’s fine,” Coulson says soothingly. “She’s not in any danger in the middle of a SHIELD base.” He pauses. “Except apparently from rogue nurses with sedatives. That’s really not what I meant when I asked them to make sure she got some sleep.”

Middle of a SHIELD base or no, Grant’ll still feel better when he gets eyes on…uh…

“What’s her name?” he asks.

“Jemma Simmons,” Coulson supplies. “And again, she’s fine.”

“She looked pretty beat up,” Grant says.

Coulson’s expression falls slightly. “Yeah, I know. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not happy about it. But it could’ve been a whole lot worse. It’s thanks to you it’s not.”

“It is?” he asks.

“Yeah. Short version is, she was kidnapped, we spent two days frantically searching, you got a lead and followed it, and ended up impersonating a member of the kidnapper’s guards…which ended with you on a flight to Lithuania, of all places.” Coulson shakes his head in bemusement. “You got in, you got her out, and you got your head bashed in in the process.”

Grant strains his memory, trying, but—“I don’t remember any of that.”

“Yeah.” Coulson’s face is sympathetic. “From what she said, you were pretty out of it by the time you got her out of the compound. You managed to get her to a helicopter and then to the trauma center, but apparently you were speaking Russian the whole way.”

Huh. “I hope I didn’t scare her.”

“Just that you might die,” is the inappropriately cheerful response. “But you didn’t, and we’re all very grateful—that you saved her life _and_ your own.” Abruptly, Coulson becomes perfectly serious. “Thank you, Ward.”

It’s weird, but—that warms him. He doesn’t know _why_ (of course he’d get a thank you after _saving a kidnapped teammate_ ), but it does.

“You’re welcome, sir,” he says, for lack of anything else.

“Anyway,” Coulson says. “We’ve been stuck in Toronto dealing with clean-up, but we just received authorization to leave. Should be there in…call it seven hours.”

“And then?” Grant asks.

Coulson pauses, then shrugs. “We’ll play it by ear.”

Great. Not really what he was looking for.

“Take care of yourself, Ward,” Coulson says, suddenly stern. “That’s an order.”

“Yes, sir,” he says, surprised.

“I mean it,” Coulson stresses. “No sneaking out of your room to start training against doctor’s orders. No getting in fights. No nothing.”

Grant considers that for a minute. “Am I the kind of guy who gets in fights?”

Coulson unfolds his hands so he can tip one back and forth in a so-so motion.

“Not often,” he admits. “But you have been known to deck a guy for making a crude comment about Simmons and Skye.”

Who Skye might be, Grant’s got no idea, but the thought of anyone mouthing off to the battered woman he saw earlier, sedated into sleeping after being _kidnapped_ …

“No promises, sir,” he says.

Coulson rolls his eyes, but his face is weirdly soft.

“Yeah,” he says. “I kinda figured. Bus out.”

With that, the screen goes black.

“Back to your room?” the orderly asks. He’s got a heavy accent—Danish, presumably—which reminds Grant that he apparently speaks Russian. He wonders if he knows Danish, too.

Not a good time to test it, probably. “Yeah. Please.”

No, wait.

“Do you know where Jemma Simmons is?” he asks.

The orderly shrugs.

“Then yeah,” Grant sighs, settling back in the wheelchair. “My room’s fine.”

+++

Fortunately, Jemma Simmons is still in Grant’s room when they get there. She’s showered since he last saw her—or so he’s guessing from her loose, wet hair—and she’s poking at a tray of food that’s been left on the end table next to her couch.

When the orderly wheels Grant in, she leaps straight to her feet.

“There you are,” she says, visibly relieved. (And very British, apparently.) “How are you feeling?”

Grant can only stare at her. In the light of day, her injuries look a lot worse. There’s a stitched cut along her jaw, surrounded by heavy bruising that spreads up and across her left cheekbone. Probably actually several overlapping bruises—one from whatever inflicted the cut, one from a blow to the cheek, and one from the hit that blackened that eye. She’s also got a split lip, and the arm she was cradling protectively last night is now in a sling.

He really, really hopes he killed whoever hurt her. He hopes he killed them _slow_.

“Ward?” she asks tentatively.

“Sorry,” he says, forcing his eyes away from her injuries. “Jemma, right? Did, uh, did they tell you…?”

“You have amnesia, yes,” she fills in after a few seconds of weirdly surprised silence. “I’m sorry.”

And now it’s his turn to be surprised. “Why?”

“Well, you _were_ injured in the course of saving me,” she says, with an apologetic—and probably really painful—grimace. Then her eyes widen. “ _And_ I’m just here, hanging about your room, when you don’t even know me and probably want your privacy.”

She’s looking at the door like she means to leave.

“Whoa, no,” he says quickly. “I might not remember you, but I know we’re on the same team. And you just got _kidnapped_. This is exactly where I want you.”

Jemma’s awkward, embarrassed expression melts into something he wants to call…fond exasperation? That’s weird. And yet it fills him with a strange warmth, same as being thanked did.

“Oh, Ward,” she says. “You’re sweet to be so protective—even now, without your memory!—but you must know I’m safe here. This is a SHIELD base.”

For some reason, he’s just not convinced that means _safe_.

“Stay anyway,” he says. “I might not know you, but at least you know me, unlike anyone else here.”

“Well, if you insist,” she says, like it’s an imposition and not exactly what she wants. It’s cute. “Since I’m here…”

“Yeah?” he prompts.

“Do you mind if I look at your chart?” she asks, all in a rush. “I know I’m in no shape to offer medical care, and we’re surrounded by actual medical professionals, but I—I would feel better if—”

Team medic, he remembers. Right. “Sure. Go ahead.”

“ _Thank_ you,” she exhales, and snatches the tablet hanging from the foot of his bed.

It’s hell on his shoulder, but Grant wheels a little closer to her anyway. The orderly makes a protesting sort of noise, and Grant twists enough to look at him.

“I’m good, man,” he says.

The orderly rolls his eyes. “Fine, be that way. Don’t complain at me if you need more stitching.”

That said, he leaves, and Grant’s free to wheel even closer to Jemma, who’s absorbed in his chart.

“What about you?” he asks, and she startles. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she says, lowering herself back onto the couch. “I’m just…a tad jumpy, after everything. And I wouldn’t think you’d be able to sneak up on me even in a wheelch… _Ward_.”

“What?” he asks, feeling a reflexive kind of defensive in the face of the way her tone goes stern out of nowhere.

“Are you wheeling _yourself_?” she demands. “Where did Malte go?”

Assuming Malte was the orderly, how did she miss that? “He had to leave. Hey, should I be calling you Simmons?”

“What?” she asks.

“You keep calling me Ward,” he says. “Should I call you Simmons?”

“Oh,” she says, kind of flustered. “Oh, you don’t—I mean—surnames are rather standard for SHIELD, but…you could call me Jemma. If you wanted.” She gives him a tiny little smile. “I could forget my own name, I hear it so rarely. Even my best friends—Fitz and Skye, do you remember them?—call me Simmons.”

The smile, the flustered response, how weird she got over being in his room…he’s pretty sure she’s got a crush on him. He _knows_ , in that way he _knows_ how to kill people, that he could use it, play on those feelings to get whatever he wanted from her.

Not that he _would_ , but he _could_. Probably has in the past—hopefully not to her, but to whoever SHIELD sent him after. He wishes he could remember.

What he doesn’t know is whether he’s got any feelings of his own. Underneath the bruising, she’s a beautiful woman—a beautiful woman who’s worried about him, who’s fretting about his health when she was only just kidnapped and is sitting there unable to smile for real without probably wanting to cry from pain. Who apologized that getting kidnapped got him amnesia.

If he did have a little return crush, he wouldn’t blame himself at all.

“Jemma it is,” he says, and pretends not to notice how that affects her. (He does notice, though, and it’s fucking adorable.) “Could you call me Grant?”

“Grant,” she agrees, smile widening—but only for a second, before pain hits and she winces.

Which reminds him of his original question. “So? What about you?”

“What _about_ me?” she asks.

“You’ve got my chart,” he says, nodding at the tablet, “but what about yours?”

“Oh, they didn’t admit me,” she says, looking reflexively down at herself. “The scrubs are simply because my own clothes got rather…ruined.”

He both really wants and really _doesn’t_ want to know what’s hiding behind that very soft word.

“And your arm?” he asks.

“My shoulder,” she corrects, touching it gently with her good hand. “It was dislocated. It’s fine now; the sling is just to prevent any sudden movements that might aggravate the pain.”

 _Fine_ is almost definitely a stretch, but who’s he to call her out on putting on a brave face? He’s the moron who refused the good drugs in favor of Tylenol. (And boy, does his head regret it.)

Instead, he just puts on a smile like he believes her.

“I’m glad to hear it,” he says. “But hey, I interrupted lunch, didn’t I?”

Jemma gives her tray of food a sideways look. “Such as it is, yes.”

No mystery why she sounds so grumpy; her tray is full of unappetizing glop. All soft foods, probably meant to go easy on her jaw, but there’s no excuse for the bland, beige-ish color everything is.

“Yeah,” he says, “that’s…something. But they were so busy trying to figure out if I’d been compromised, I never even got any breakfast. What do you say we hit up the canteen, get some real food?”

Jemma brightens, then narrows her eyes on him.

“Are you on a restricted diet?” she asks suspiciously—and what’d he do to deserve _that_ kind of tone, huh?

“Not that I know of,” he says, turning his hands over to emphasize his innocence. “Nobody’s said anything about it, at least.”

She picks his tablet chart back up and scrolls through it quickly, muttering something he can’t quite make out under her breath. After a second, she smiles and puts it aside.

“No dietary restrictions,” she says cheerfully, pushing herself to her feet. “The canteen it is, then. But! One condition.”

“Okay?” he asks. He doesn’t bother to hold back his smile at the stern way she’s pointing at him; Jemma blinks, apparently taken aback, and then shakes her head.

“You will remain in that wheelchair,” she says, very firmly, “and _I_ will push it. You will not wheel yourself even _one inch_ , Grant Ward, is that clear?”

If necessary, Grant’s perfectly willing to blame his head injury for the fact that he says exactly what he’s thinking, which is, “You’re adorable.”

Jemma pulls back a little, and the unbruised half of her face goes just a little bit pink, but her stern finger doesn’t waver.

“Yes, well,” she says, and clears her throat. “Regardless of that fact, I’m very serious. You are not to move your wheelchair at _all_. Understood?”

“Understood,” he agrees, and the stern finger drops. “But how are you gonna push me one-handed?”

“Oh.” Jemma looks between her arm and the chair, then sighs. “Very well, I suppose I _won’t_ push you—but you’re still not to push yourself! I’ll go find an orderly.”

Before Grant can stop her, she’s out the door—and back seconds later, to his relief. They’re gonna have to have a talk about her leaving his sight. He’s just not sold on her being safe just because this is a SHIELD base.

+++

Over lunch, he tries to have that talk with Jemma. She nods very seriously and promises to stay close, but he can tell she’s just humoring him. She doesn’t see any risk at all in being surrounded by strange agents.

Well, whatever. As long as she sticks close, he doesn’t care whether she believes there’s legitimate danger or not.

They spend several hours in the canteen, as Jemma fills him in on their team and various misadventures they’ve had. Grant memorizes the names—Fitz the engineer, Skye the hacker, May the pilot/fellow specialist—but mostly just enjoys the animation on Jemma’s face as she tells him about prank wars and the ghost that wasn’t a ghost.

He also learns plenty about himself. Some from her stories—she paints a picture of a protective and very effective specialist, someone she trusts to handle anyone who looks sideways at them—but mostly from her reactions to him. Every time he smiles or laughs, she pauses just slightly. From that, he takes it he’s not usually so open. Why that might be, he doesn’t know.

He does know that he’s also apparently a _moron_ , because several hours spent with Jemma doesn’t do anything to make him like her any less. She’s sweet at first glance, all soft concern and worry, but she’s also a literal genius—two PhDs, she explains when he prods her over the medic/biochemist thing—with a spine of steel (the story of him having to jump out of the damn plane after her nearly gives him a heart attack) and, as she opens up, a wicked sense of humor.

How was he not all over her? Everything from her dorky joke about the periodic table to the soft way she touches his hand when asking after his appetite is just…man. He doesn’t understand himself at all.

Eventually, they get chased out of the canteen, and it’s only another hour after they settle back in his room that their team arrives.

+++

Skye-the-hacker is apparently also Grant’s protégé, and the first thing she does—after fretting over Jemma’s bruises—is proudly report that she’s kept up with all of her training since he left.

That’d be great, except something about the way she’s standing makes him think she might be crossing her toes while she says it—and he gets the feeling she’s definitely the kind of person to do that.

“ _All_ of it?” he asks skeptically. “Or just most?”

Skye’s face drops.

“How do you do that?” she demands, and leans in close, eyes narrowed. “Do you really have amnesia, or is this some weird training exercise?”

“I really have amnesia,” he promises dryly. “And you’re crossing your toes.”

She looks reflexively down at her sneakers, then back up at him.

“I just want you to know,” she says, very earnestly, “from the bottom of my heart, that you are _super creepy_.”

“And you’ve been slacking on your training,” he says. “You’re gonna have to make up for everything you’ve skipped, you know.”

She takes three quick steps back.

“You can’t be my SO while you’re recovering from _amnesia_ ,” she says, and ducks behind Jemma. “Simmons, tell him!”

“Well,” Jemma says. “He can’t take _part_ in your training, but—”

“But nothing,” Skye interrupts. “That was a ‘yes, Skye, you’re safe from strength training’ thanks very much okay bye!”

With that, she’s gone, out the door before anyone can call her back and leaving silence in her wake.

“Okay,” Grant says. “Training her must be…fun.”

Jemma giggles.

+++

After three more nights in the trauma center for observation, Grant’s released to the team with strict instructions not to return to the field for at least a month. Instructions given to _Coulson_ , not to him—which is unfortunate, because he feels like a month is definitely excessive and he probably would’ve shortened it to two weeks when passing word on.

Which, come to think of it, is probably why they gave the instructions directly to Coulson.

Either way, they’re leaving the trauma center—and, bonus, he finally gets to ditch the wheelchair. He’s got equally strict instructions (via Jemma) not to resume training until the end of the week, and even that’ll be very limited and with careful supervision, but at least he can _walk_.

None of this does anything for the fact that he doesn’t remember these people at all, but nothing but time’s gonna help there.

Still, there’s hope. He’s had a few memories slot into place: mostly from the Academy, but there was one of Skye sheepishly admitting to releasing her gun’s magazine instead of safety in the field that inspired him to run her through seventeen assembly drills, so that was fun.

Grant and Jemma get some weird looks over calling each other by their first names, but nobody questions it. Nobody’s questioning Jemma at _all_ ; he gets the feeling they’re all just as upset by her injuries as he is. Even May—the quietest and hardest to read of all the team—passes her a cookie out of nowhere on his first day on the Bus.

 _(The Bus_ is what they call their plane. Nobody’s saying why; they just do.)

On his second day on the Bus, May corners him in the kitchen first thing in the morning.

“We’ve been sleeping together for six months,” she says bluntly, and Grant chokes on his coffee.

Literally. He inhales a fair bit of it, and then there’s a whole lot of coughing that doesn’t do his bruised ribs any favors.

“What?” he manages somehow to croak.

“It was just sex,” she says, handing him a napkin. “And it was time to end it anyway. Let’s not do it again.”

“Okay?” he asks.

“Okay,” she says, and then, “Don’t do anything stupid.”

That settled, she grabs a banana off the counter and leaves.

“What?” he asks after her. She doesn’t answer.

So that’s May. She’s a beautiful woman, no doubt, and he’s sure they had fun—but yeah, he doesn’t get himself. Why he’d hook up with her when Jemma’s _right there_ , he just doesn’t know.

+++

Fitz is another story. He came to visit in the trauma center, same as the others, and it seemed like they were pretty good friends—he sure spent long enough questioning every nearby doctor about Grant’s prognosis. But he and Jemma are tight (best friends since the Academy, she told him), and after the return to the Bus, he can’t be pried away from her.

There might actually be some feelings there on Fitz’s part, which would explain how he cools toward Grant as time goes by and Jemma and Grant grow closer. The first name thing really seems to bug him; his eye actually starts twitching every time Jemma calls Grant by name.

(Part of Grant feels bad, but honestly—that’s fucking hilarious.)

Still, he doesn’t try to start anything or get in between Grant and Jemma, so he leaves it be. Probably the guy just needs time to adjust.

+++

  
Nine days after Grant’s release from the trauma center, the Bus gets a call. Grant’s in the middle of a lecture from Jemma on pushing himself too hard (he’s literally been working out for _ten minutes_ ), so he’s happy to escape upstairs to Coulson’s office to take it.

He doesn’t know the man waiting on screen for him, but he does _know_ him, somehow. There’s a little spark of familiarity that draws him in.

“Sir?” he asks.

“Ward,” Coulson says, “this is John Garrett, your SO. Take as much time as you need.”

So saying, Coulson slips away, patting Grant’s arm in passing.

“Well,” John Garrett says, shaking his head, “that answers that question. You don’t know me, huh?”

“I’m afraid not, sir,” Grant says.

“Damn shame.” Garrett crosses his arms. “I was sorry to hear about your injury, son—and sorry it took me so long to call. Me’n Trip’ve been deep under searching for the Clairvoyant.”

Grant’s heard plenty about the Clairvoyant—mostly from Jemma, who’s offended by just about everything about the man, from his pretense at being psychic (“There is _no such thing_ , Grant”) to his misuse of some apparently fascinating science.

“Any luck?” he asks.

“Sadly, no,” Garrett says. He seems to be studying Grant’s face, looking for…something. “No memory at all?”

“I’ve gotten a couple back,” Grant says. “The Academy. Skye. Somewhere really cold where I had a broken arm.”

Garrett clicks his tongue. “Siberia. That was a rough one.”

“Felt like it,” Grant agrees. “But overall, no. Just a lot of empty space.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Garrett says. “Now, I’ve gotta go—I left Trip alone with our pretty guide, and hoo boy, that could be a mistake—but I want you to know you can call me anytime, okay? You might not remember it, but you’ve been like a son to me for damn near fifteen years. You have any questions, anything you wanna talk about—you give me a call. Got it?”

“Got it,” Grant agrees, touched. “Thank you, sir.”

“Sure thing,” Garrett says. “Feel better now, you hear?”

So saying, he cuts the feed, and Grant’s left to stand there in Coulson’s office and strain for something, _anything_ —

But no. Not a single memory of a man who’s been like a father to him for more than a decade comes to mind.

+++

When Grant was first released from the trauma center, Coulson decided to set the Bus down somewhere quiet. He claimed they all needed a break after everything they’d been through lately, but Grant knew it was mostly for his benefit—the trauma center set all his nerves on edge, all those people he didn’t know pressing in from every side—and appreciated the choice not to set down at an actual base.

Three weeks after his release, when the Bus’ radio, external network, and secure comm all go down at once, he kinda regrets it.

“Is it a hack?” Coulson demands of Skye.

“No,” she says shortly, fingers flying over the holocom. “It’s some kind of interference—this weird blanket signal that’s being broadcast over every channel.”

Beneath their feet, the Bus rumbles to life. All eyes go to May, who’s right there in the briefing room and definitely not starting up the Bus’ engines. She runs out without a word…only to return less than five minutes later.

“Automated control,” she reports grimly. “Someone at HQ is flying us somewhere.”

“Why?” Jemma asks. She’s close to Grant, arms crossed tight over her chest. “Did we disobey orders again, sir?”

Coulson shakes his head. “We haven’t received any orders for weeks.”

Fitz looks to May. “We could probably override the autopilot.”

“Probably,” she agrees.

Coulson hesitates, then nods sharply. “Do it. We can apologize to HQ later.”

Fitz and May leave at a run, probably headed for avionics. Even as they go, Skye makes a triumphant noise.

“Got it,” she says. “It’s not just a signal, it’s encoded data. Some kind of message.”

“Decrypt it,” Coulson orders.

“Already on it, AC,” she says.

They stand in tense silence while she does. Jemma draws a little closer to Grant, and he lets his arm brush hers. Her sudden tension is no surprise; the last time the team got involved in any kind of mission, she was kidnapped and beaten—and now someone’s trying to abduct their whole damn plane.

“Ha!” Skye exclaims, and hits one last key on the holocom. “Gonna need more than semantic encoding to beat me, jerks.”

On the screen behind her, a message appears letter by letter.

OUT OF THE SHADOWS, INTO THE LIGHT.

It’s so damn creepy—so reminiscent of one of the spy movies they’ve been marathoning for the last week—that Grant finds himself reaching for his gun. And maybe it’s the familiar shape under his palm, or maybe it’s the last word that appears on screen, just as he makes contact—

HYDRA

—but something sets off a whole _chain_ of memories.

The woods. A dog. Garrett next to a campfire, asking, “You ever heard of Hydra?” and Grant shakes his head, starving even as he’s eating, there’s never enough food—

And then Jemma takes his hand. “Grant?”

Garrett’s Hydra. Hell, _Grant’s_ Hydra.

“Sorry,” he says, slowly realizing everyone’s staring at him. “I think the shock just…shook something loose.”

“You remembered something?” Coulson asks.

“A lot of things.”

It’s not _everything_ , not by a long shot, but it’s enough. Enough to know he was put on this team to spy on them, that Garrett’s the very Clairvoyant he’s pretending to chase. That the code phrase still up on screen is a rallying cry, the signal to kick off an uprising seventy years in the making.

“Important things?” Skye asks, weirdly tentative. Probably because Grant’s just standing here, stock still, like a moron.

He _is_ a moron, though. He can remember being die-hard loyal to Garrett—can remember putting Garrett’s life before his, over and over again. He’s killed for Garrett. Casually, easily, frequently. He remembers that.

But he doesn’t remember _why_. What about a guy who abandoned him to starve in the woods and forced him to shoot _his own dog_ inspired that kind of loyalty?

Grant might never know—and for now, he doesn’t care. Right now, all that matters is protecting his team.

“No,” he says. “Just a lot. What are your orders, sir?”

The Bus stops mid-air. Fitz and May managed to override the autopilot, then. Good thing, too, or they’d probably be flying straight into a Hydra ambush.

“Get ready,” Coulson orders. “We’re gonna set down somewhere and regroup, but after that—we might have to wade into things. You feeling up to it?”

Grant doesn’t even hesitate. “Definitely.”

“Good,” Coulson says, and turns on his heel. “Skye, work on breaking through that signal. As soon as you do, I’m gonna be calling around, seeing who’s on whose side. Simmons, you might wanna restock the first aid kit. I have a feeling this is gonna get messy.”

And on that cheery note, he walks out.

“Say what you will about AC,” Skye mutters, already back to working at the signal, “he knows how to make an exit.”

“He certainly does,” Jemma says, kind of shakily, and moves to leave.

Grant follows her out, which doesn’t draw her attention—but following her across the cabin, toward the stairs to the lab, does.

“Grant?” she asks. “Shouldn’t you be…?”

She trails off, probably not totally sure how a specialist prepares for facing the downfall of his agency, but yeah, there are plenty of things he could be doing. Changing into his tac gear, for one—he’s not gonna thank himself if he has to face all of Hydra wearing jeans.

But something’s more important.

“I did remember one important thing,” he says. Lies. But hell, he’s been playing her for months (he remembers that, and gets it even _less_ than he does the Garrett loyalty).

“Oh?” she asks, and tries to smile for him. “What was that?”

“That I’ve been meaning to do this for ages,” he says—lies again—and kisses her.

It’s a good kiss. Her hair is soft under his fingers and she melts into him immediately, no hesitation at all. She tastes like tea and honey, and her nails just barely scratch against his skin when she fists a hand in his collar.

Hell, it’s a _great_ kiss.

“Oh,” she breathes when they part. “I didn’t think—I wasn’t sure—”

“Apparently I’m kinda slow at this,” Grant says. _Very_ slow, seeing as the idiot he was before was barely looking at her. “But I get there eventually. I know the timing is crappy, but after all this is over, can I buy you a drink?”

Jemma laughs, presumably because it’s so fucking absurd that Grant is asking her out at the start of the uprising. Still, he can’t mind, not when it puts some color and a smile on her previously way-too-pale face.

“Yes,” she says. “Please.”

“Great,” he says, and kisses her again—quicker this time. “And I _promise_ , Jemma: no one’s laying a hand on you. Not ever again.”

He’ll kill them all first.

“Thank you,” Jemma says, and then it’s her turn to kiss him. “Now go do whatever it is specialists do to prepare for…any of this. I have to go break some terrible news to Fitz.”

She probably means the whole Hydra thing, but with his new dose of memories, Grant’s pretty sure it’s their upcoming date that’s gonna hit the poor guy harder.

“Good luck,” Grant says, and lets her go.

Maybe if he had all of his memories, he’d be horrified by this. With what he’s got, though?

He’s pretty sure he’s making the right choice.

Fuck Hydra.


End file.
